CCTS to reveal which telecom provider received the most complaints

On Wednesday, the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications (CCTS) will release its mid-year report detailing the number of complaints Canadians are bringing to the organization about their telecommunications service. The CCTS, which is an independent though industry-funded agency, says the news will be made public on March 30th.

In December, the CCTS published its annual report for 2014-2015 and Bell grabbed top spot in the country with 3,599 complaints, followed by Rogers at 1,814, and Wind Mobile with 704 complaints. It’s also worth noting that the number of complaints declined 12 percent over the previous year.

Canadians can contact the CCTS and lodge complaints about their wireless, internet, local phone and long distance services.

For the past six years, the CCTS revealed billing errors topped the list of consumer complaints against telcos. It’s not clear if the trend will continue, but the possibility is high.

Kind of surprising..now we see the actual numbers of complaints, but I wonder if the top spot changes when that number is translated/adjusted for % of total subscribers. For me that might be a more telling metric, % of unhappy users. Cheers

Shawn Lancaster

As far as I’m aware, Rogers has about 6 subscribers to Bell’s 5. Close, but still a bit more.

JB

I take these results with a grain of salt. Having been through the CCTS complaint processes twice, it’s clear to me that the provider’s primary concern is protecting their record, and the CCTS is helping them game the system.

My case was dismissed by CCTS (win for the telco) and reopened on my appeal. CCTS then notified my and the provider that they would be issuing a recommendation in my favor. At that time (4 months after the start of the initial complaint), the provider agreed to all my terms, and the complaint was closed. The provider avoided a black mark against them, and the reported outcome was “resolved”.

Yep. The CCTS sided with Rogers over me when Rogers claims I’m within their LTE zone when there’s not so much as a phone signal with 5km of my town.

Stewie J. Powers

Providers do not guarantee coverage. It’s written black on white on your contract. therefore they win.

Its illogical to think that cell signal will be 100% available 100% of the time in Canada, which is not the case at all.

I’ve said it in many posts before and I’ll say it again, the landmass of Canada is way too big for 3 companies, and only 30 or so million subscribers combined. So they need to be strategic with their tower placements and positions to ensure maximum coverage in the area that gives them a lesser revenue. Less revenue = less subscribers = less need for towers, thus doing what Canadians love to do “vote with their money”.

Might I suggest calling your town council or mayors office and see how to go about getting a tower installed for the town. plead your case. Hopefully they won’t flip you the bill cuz you’ll instantly go bankrupt.

It sounds like they don’t have coverage and are trying to keep you as a client so they tell you they do to keep you a bit longer. Might I also suggest a carrier change? You seem long overdue.

I don’t expect them to provide coverage everywhere. I do, however, expect them to provide coverage where their own damn service maps claim they do. I’m pretty sure making claims to a service you don’t actually provide is considered fraud in most other industries.

“The provider’s primary concern is protecting their record, and the CCTS is helping them game the system.”

Could you explain more? Their record being the what record? What’s gaming the system?

John E

Last August I remember I went to a wirelesswave and I took up a offer on a low cost subsided LG G4 from Bell, the sales rep demanded I make a $200 deposit. A month later I found out he scanned the wrong phone box and blacklisted my phone as stolen and Bell was about to inform the police, going to the wireless wave resolved the issue somewhat but I found out through Bell that they never needed a deposit the wireless wave took the $200 dollars and never sent it to Bell and refused to refund me.

Whole point of this story is that the system is really messed up and it’s not just carriers who are messed up.

Erwin_Ign

Wireless Wave and Wow Mobile makes so much mistake I won’t recommend them.

dc2000

They do make mistakes, I don’t doubt that for a second. But I’ve been to Wireless Wave about a dozen times for myself or with others to do a hardware upgrade or new activation and I always walked away with feeling good about the deal. Example: A Note 4 for $199.99, marked down to $0 + $250 in store credit(which resulted in $250 in visa gift cards + I still got away with an Otterbox on top of that!).

Last example: $99.99 BlackBerry Classic, new activation dropped down to $0. $50 trade in bill credit with an 8 year old BlackBerry, $50 donation to a charity(I doubt this actually occured, fyi), $200 in store credit + $200 suretap credit(this converted to a bill credit as they weren’t able to activate suretap on my phone months later). They paid me the outright purchase price on the Classic. And funny thing is this was in Mid December of 2014 when the phone was considered brand new to market.

Lots of good deals to be had, just have to be an informed consumer and ask questions/haggle, read contracts before signing and just have a basic understanding of the industry.

Longtin

If they think for a second they can trick the customer or apply something on their bill extra because they don’t check their bills, they will do it. Obviously it will depend on your location and the rep itself, the district they work for, most are good people at the end of the day.

MoYeung

“If they think for a second they can trick the customer or apply something on their bill extra because they don’t check their bills, they will do it.”

Society unraveling…

Matt

Yep wireless wave rep probably took the lg g4 for him or herself and scammed you from the other one. I went to a wirelesswave store before about to sign up for a phone i gave my info but then i changed my mind. Turns out i found out later on that the rep took out a contract under my name for himself and committed fraud. And i took this complaint to CCTS but they didn’t want to take my complaint. I also reported it to police and also called credit reporting agency which they took it off my credit report even police investigated and charged the rep. But still rogers demands payment from me even though they were told by police it wasn’t me and credit reporting agency told them as well. Rogers is a dumb company. And ccts can be dumb as well and no help

It all depends on who you get. Some reps are crap and others are amazing.

If something feels off, walk away and try elsewhere.

Longtin

3rd Party Dealers, I herd horror stories before , but this one takes the cake! Wow. As if they would even try and pocket that $200, what if you actually did make your bill payments on time for 12 months straight? Than Bell would of had to bill credit you the $200, that would of never happened and you would of had to call in explaining the situation. That’s just insane. Moral of the story stick to corporate.

jayzon12

Ive had pretty bad horror stories with corporate stores as well. I think it all depends on the rep you get because I have had amazing and terrible experiences at both corporate and 3rd party dealers

Benoit Bourdua

Bell on top. With billing errors. Shocking. (not really)

Omis

Wind would have had more complaints but the calls got dropped.

Techguru86

The smaller telco’s are bottle necked by the Big 3, and after only being around 6 years, service is decent not perfect.

fruvous

The Big 3 have nothing to do with Wind’s complaints. The complaints against Wind were about how they were not clear at what their Unlimited service was and thresholds there were.

Longtin

There’s a gray area right now about billing errors. 95% of the time I would say it’s customer induced. They brought it upon themselves by going over their plan. Especially the fact that you can purchase apps and just have them charge your bill is another “error” that customers seem to think they can pull a fast one. If you have a Nation Wide plan you will only be charge extra if you call the USA or go over your Data. I don’t know; I’ve personally owned a phone since I was 18 and I’ve never seen a mistake on my cell phone bill. It was all my fault if I did go over. I would love to see if it’s mainly because of broken phones / software glitches that customers generally try and get something out of the company or they complain.

Haseeb Khan

Why can’t we just have a worry free plan ? Unlimited Call, Text & Data ? At a reasonable price ? .. I mean after all a smartphone isn’t a smartphone when you can’t use it to its full advantage. Right ? Correct me if I’m wrong. Thanks .